Government by repeated brinksmanship

Published: Monday, January 7, 2013 at 7:47 a.m.

Last Modified: Monday, January 7, 2013 at 7:47 a.m.

We all have them — that scene from a movie that keeps you awake at night, mulling over and over, “What if …” The scene that has most haunted me was a stunt any teenager who thinks she is immortal might be crazy enough to try. In the old movie “Footloose,” the local minister’s daughter, a beautiful young girl who’s fed up with the expectations heaped on preachers’ kids, is out joyriding with a bunch of her friends.

Soon a car full of more friends pulls up beside them, and before you know it, this daring girl has both cars driving side by side (on a twolane road) at exactly the same speed. She somehow manages to climb out of the window far enough to grab the other car, and stand up (!!!!!), straddling both cars with one foot in one window and one foot in the other car’s window.

This is the kind of scene that does its dirty work long after the movie is over. In the middle of the night, up pops the scene in your memory, in Technicolor. Suddenly, the full brunt of what could have gone wrong hits you right in the stomach.

What if another car had been coming in the other direction and one of the two cars she was straddling had to get back into its own lane? What if one of the drivers couldn’t hold his car at exactly the same speed as the other car? What if one of the cars had hit a pothole in the road?

Had any little thing gone wrong — anything — there would have been one beautiful girl splattered all over the road.

And for what? It’s not as if she was doing this to save the world, or trying to raise money for a mission trip. The fact that it was so needlessly daring is what made it so heartbreaking.

◆ ◆ ◆

And so we come to the first of who knows how many cliffhangers in the second term of President Barack Obama.

Round number one, waged on the issue of tax cuts for the 98 percent and a tax hike on the remaining 2 percent, was a given. We knew that because both sides told us it would happen. In “Your back’s against the wall now, Bucko” language, we were promised a daring showdown with a hold-your-breath ending. Well, no one can accuse them of breaking that promise.

The deal that locked in lower tax rates for the middle class, while raising taxes on the nation’s wealthiest 2 percent, was not passed until shortly before midnight, Jan. 1, 2013. Since New Year’s Day is a legal holiday and the stock market was closed, the damage was kept to a minimum.

And because we understand that the movie isn’t over until every last cliffhanger is resolved, we knew it would work out OK in the end. It always does.

In the movies.

The problem is that real life is not always as carefully scripted as the movies. Many of us start to yawn and change the channel when the experts and the analysts explain to us what was at stake if the worstcase scenario had actually happened.

The problem is a warning unheeded is still a warning that was needed.

The tax-cut crisis we have just navigated leaves us right where we were, going into it: still floating in an ocean filled with icebergs. Somehow, we still believe that the United States is the Titanic and is absolutely unsinkable.

Even one day later, on Jan. 2, we faced the same problems that brought us into these dangerous waters in the first place. An intractable Congress at odds with itself, each party with his own agenda and each willing to “die on this mountain,” if it will make the point that they intend to steer this ship (the United States) into a safe harbor (financial solvency). The great danger is that they will each get so caught up in marshalling their forces into formation that they will forget the vessel itself, and sink it.

Somewhere along the line, party ideologies have trumped common sense and turned a group of elected representatives into enemies who must each “sink” the other in order to win. The problem is, if they succeed, one half of us will have sunk the other half, thereby defeating all of us. In nations and governance, we sink or swim together.

March is coming quickly. In eight weeks, it will be here. The next scheduled battle over the debt ceiling looms menacingly on the horizon. The experts and analysts have promised us it will make the tax-cut battle seem like a walk in the park.

There is no good reason to bring America, and by extension, every stock market in the world, to the brink of doom over and over and over again. This is one scene that will be worse in the actual drama than anything we can imagine beforehand. Not to mention that it sends the world a message that the United States is being run by a bunch of quarreling schoolboys.

We have elected representatives to work for us, not against each other.

Once upon a time, Congress was a group of representatives entrusted with the awe-inspiring task of creating legislation to guide a great body of free people into a safe harbor. We, the people, whose job it is to hold our elected representatives responsible to do just that, owe it to ourselves to make them do their job in a timely manner, or replace them with others who will.

When “we, the people” mean what we say, our representatives will do what we say.

<p>We all have them — that scene from a movie that keeps you awake at night, mulling over and over, “What if …” The scene that has most haunted me was a stunt any teenager who thinks she is immortal might be crazy enough to try. In the old movie “Footloose,” the local minister's daughter, a beautiful young girl who's fed up with the expectations heaped on preachers' kids, is out joyriding with a bunch of her friends.</p><p>Soon a car full of more friends pulls up beside them, and before you know it, this daring girl has both cars driving side by side (on a twolane road) at exactly the same speed. She somehow manages to climb out of the window far enough to grab the other car, and stand up (!!!!!), straddling both cars with one foot in one window and one foot in the other car's window.</p><p>This is the kind of scene that does its dirty work long after the movie is over. In the middle of the night, up pops the scene in your memory, in Technicolor. Suddenly, the full brunt of what could have gone wrong hits you right in the stomach.</p><p>What if another car had been coming in the other direction and one of the two cars she was straddling had to get back into its own lane? What if one of the drivers couldn't hold his car at exactly the same speed as the other car? What if one of the cars had hit a pothole in the road?</p><p>Had any little thing gone wrong — anything — there would have been one beautiful girl splattered all over the road.</p><p>And for what? It's not as if she was doing this to save the world, or trying to raise money for a mission trip. The fact that it was so needlessly daring is what made it so heartbreaking.</p><p>◆ ◆ ◆</p><p>And so we come to the first of who knows how many cliffhangers in the second term of President Barack Obama.</p><p>Round number one, waged on the issue of tax cuts for the 98 percent and a tax hike on the remaining 2 percent, was a given. We knew that because both sides told us it would happen. In “Your back's against the wall now, Bucko” language, we were promised a daring showdown with a hold-your-breath ending. Well, no one can accuse them of breaking that promise.</p><p>The deal that locked in lower tax rates for the middle class, while raising taxes on the nation's wealthiest 2 percent, was not passed until shortly before midnight, Jan. 1, 2013. Since New Year's Day is a legal holiday and the stock market was closed, the damage was kept to a minimum.</p><p>And because we understand that the movie isn't over until every last cliffhanger is resolved, we knew it would work out OK in the end. It always does.</p><p>In the movies.</p><p>The problem is that real life is not always as carefully scripted as the movies. Many of us start to yawn and change the channel when the experts and the analysts explain to us what was at stake if the worstcase scenario had actually happened.</p><p>The problem is a warning unheeded is still a warning that was needed.</p><p>The tax-cut crisis we have just navigated leaves us right where we were, going into it: still floating in an ocean filled with icebergs. Somehow, we still believe that the United States is the Titanic and is absolutely unsinkable.</p><p>Even one day later, on Jan. 2, we faced the same problems that brought us into these dangerous waters in the first place. An intractable Congress at odds with itself, each party with his own agenda and each willing to “die on this mountain,” if it will make the point that they intend to steer this ship (the United States) into a safe harbor (financial solvency). The great danger is that they will each get so caught up in marshalling their forces into formation that they will forget the vessel itself, and sink it.</p><p>Somewhere along the line, party ideologies have trumped common sense and turned a group of elected representatives into enemies who must each “sink” the other in order to win. The problem is, if they succeed, one half of us will have sunk the other half, thereby defeating all of us. In nations and governance, we sink or swim together.</p><p>March is coming quickly. In eight weeks, it will be here. The next scheduled battle over the debt ceiling looms menacingly on the horizon. The experts and analysts have promised us it will make the tax-cut battle seem like a walk in the park.</p><p>There is no good reason to bring America, and by extension, every stock market in the world, to the brink of doom over and over and over again. This is one scene that will be worse in the actual drama than anything we can imagine beforehand. Not to mention that it sends the world a message that the United States is being run by a bunch of quarreling schoolboys.</p><p>We have elected representatives to work for us, not against each other.</p><p>Once upon a time, Congress was a group of representatives entrusted with the awe-inspiring task of creating legislation to guide a great body of free people into a safe harbor. We, the people, whose job it is to hold our elected representatives responsible to do just that, owe it to ourselves to make them do their job in a timely manner, or replace them with others who will.</p><p>When “we, the people” mean what we say, our representatives will do what we say.</p>